


whalesong

by kagamiwa



Category: Day6 (Band), GOT7
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, M/M, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21703687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagamiwa/pseuds/kagamiwa
Summary: Two people, two stories and lifetimes between them.
Relationships: Kim Wonpil/Park Jinyoung (GOT7)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: JYP JUKEBOX ROUND 2: OF MONSTERS AND MEN





	whalesong

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JYP Jukebox Round 2. Part 1 inspired by [From Finner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gr6HBMDu0) and part 2 by [Empire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2lzxGcbz-g).
> 
> Big thanks to Ellie for organizing this!

When the storm clears, Jinyoung brushes aside dripping branches and damp vines to find the body floating in the red water.

Overhead, gray sky and even grayer clouds stretch as far as the eye can see. Beyond, the perfect line where it meets the dark sea. But before him, just beyond the whale’s fin, the remains of the fight litter the surface of the water. Planks of wood and torn sheets of what he assumes to be sails bob serenely along in the mottled red waves. The ship that went down must have been big, but there is only one person with his head still above the surface.

Jinyoung looks for the whale that must have attacked the ship, and spots a large dark island not too far off in the distance. He looks away. The sharks will come soon. He turns his attention back to the body, wondering if he should leave it to the sharks too. It’s been a long time since he’s seen another person, and he can’t remember if he should abide by the rule of the whales when it comes to a human death.

But then – a movement! The man in the water, half his body sprawled on a rather large piece of wood, stirs. He flails a little, struggling to clamber higher on the board, then goes still again. Jinyoung slides down the barnacle-encrusted side of his whale and dives headfirst into the bloodied water.

When the man awakens, Jinyoung is kneeling before an open fire, the three fish he’d caught roasting above it on a spit. The whale probably hadn’t thought that the man would make it – three fish was plenty for Jinyoung, but not enough for both him and his new companion.

He hears a movement behind him and turns. The man bristles at the sight of him, leaves and moss pressed to his skin where he had bled. He struggles to sit up on his moss bed, then seems to give up and lies back down. His dark, harrowed eyes never seem to leave Jinyoung’s.

“Stay there. You need to rest.”

The words come out strange and hoarse, and surprises even him. Once, a long time ago, he used to try and sing to himself while he watched the ocean glide by, but the words to any songs had long faded, leaving only faint melodies that soon disappeared too. Since then, he had spoken to no one.

Jinyoung gets up from the fire, brushing the dirt from his knees, and lays a cool hand over the man’s forehead. The man tenses up, but allows his fingers to stay. They’re pretty much the same temperature and Jinyoung nods, satisfied. He grabs the skein of water that sits propped against a nearby tree and holds it up to the man’s lips.

“Drink,” he says, dry and scratchy as before.

The drowned man drinks, then settles back against the moss. His eyes remain just as wary as before. “What’s your name?” he asks, and Jinyoung’s breath catches in his throat. How long since he’s heard something other than the gentle lap of calm waves against the sides of his island or the thunderous clap of a furious sea. The man’s voice brings up vague memories of grass beneath his feet, of cold metal glinting under a burning sun, of the warmth of someone’s arm across his shoulders. He shudders, and pulls himself back to the man’s dark eyes.

“I am Jinyoung.” The name no longer means anything to him.

“I’m Wonpil,” says the drowned man, and closes his eyes.

They come across the wreckage by accident.

Jinyoung is familiar with these scenes; of bloodied water and an eerie stillness. The remains of ships that humans should have inhabited but no bodies to be seen. Wonpil had been the anomaly in one of these scenes, but Jinyoung never told him that.

“We should go see if anyone survived,” Wonpil always says, but Jinyoung already knows that they will find nothing. The seas take what they think is rightfully theirs, whether wood or cloth or whale or human. And when a whale was felled, you could be sure that their human had been too. It was simply the rules.

“I don’t remember how it happened,” Wonpil says now, his dark eyes following the ghostly hull of the ship as they drift slowly past. “We were sailing along so carefully when the sea suddenly turned on us. I saw men tossed out of the ship like leaves in the wind. I just remember seeing something dark and vicious coming out of the water, and that was the last thing I saw.” He looks stronger now, but his cheekbones still protrude from under his skin, and no amount of fish seems to fatten him up. Jinyoung’s whale can only provide so much, and Jinyoung himself turns to the diet of a forest scavenger.

“The whales don’t like anything else in the water,” he explains, and runs his hand along the rough, calloused back of his whale. It sends out a low cry in response, echoing across the expanse. “For a long time they could not roam free, and now they will let nothing take it from them. I’m sorry it had to happen to you.” He’s much more used to it now – speaking – and though his voice remains unfamiliar to him he can’t say if it’s simply because he’s forgotten what it sounds like.

Wonpil turns and looks back at the dark forest growing on the whale’s back. In there, he knows, it is warm and safe, and on the rare days when the sun breaks through the clouds the forest floor turns into a haven of green dappled light. “Yet the whale protects you.”

Jinyoung smiles. “The whale provides, and nothing else.”

Wonpil is silent for a moment. Jinyoung prefers the rare occasions when he smiles, when he loses the worry lined in the corners of his mouth. “How long have you been here? On this whale?”

“Lifetimes.”

Further on, they happen across the clean-picked bones rising out of the water. Predatory birds circle overhead, and from the bones new plants have already begun to sprout, lining the whale’s spine with small pink flowers. Wonpil, sitting beside Jinyoung, does not ask any more questions.

Jinyoung takes him to the cave one night, when a balmy wind blows across the open ocean and carries the cries of the whales along with it. Brushing aside looping vines and carrying a flaming torch in one hand, Jinyoung presses a finger to his lips and nods before ducking into the dark cavern.

He’d only been here once before, lifetimes ago, when he’d first awoken on the whale. The voice in his head had guided him to this place, perhaps to explain how he had got there, but he had never found it again after that. Until now.

“The whales told me this story once,” Jinyoung whispers now. In the firelight the hollows under Wonpil’s cheekbones look more pronounced than ever. Here in the cave the whales’ song sounds muffled and distant. “The story of how this world came to be. I tried to understand it that time but I couldn’t. Maybe by explaining it to you I might come to remember something.” He stops at the center of the cave, and blows out the torch.

“What -,” Wonpil starts, but Jinyoung gestures at him to look up. The cave opens up above their heads to a clear sky, dotted with stars. The jagged opening frames the moon perfectly in the middle, and when Jinyoung lies down on the cold stone floor, Wonpil follows.

“Look,” Jinyoung points up at a star. “There. That’s where it begins. They say there was a prince once, who was forced to abandon his throne.” His finger travels to the next star. “He ran, but a loyal knight pledged his life to the prince and vowed to restore his empire to him. They fought together, and the prince won back his kingdom.” His finger slid across the moon to another star. “But the prince was greedy. He wanted the world, but the world did not want him. So it decided to take back what he had taken from it. First it took his empire. And then it took the knight. And then, when it had taken everything from him, the sea took him too.”

Wonpil was silent beside him.

“The whales mourned the knight, who had only tried to help the person he loved most in the world. And when the world turned to sea and sky, the whales pledged to honour the knight by helping anyone they could. Sometimes the sea disagrees with them, and takes them away. But the whales answer to no one. And that is how this world came to be.”

Wonpil stares up at the moon, and Jinyoung can see it reflected in his dark, dark eyes. Even now, he still cannot understand the significance of the whales’ story, but seeing Wonpil calms him. Before Wonpil came, Jinyoung had always felt the empty hollowness inside him stretching as far as the ocean. Now he feels the lull of the waves, reminding him that he is still whole. “How did you come to be on that ship?” he asks.

“I was looking for someone,” Wonpil replies. Lying side by side on the cold, stony ground, Jinyoung feels Wonpil’s hand radiating warmth. Beneath their backs, the whale emits a low, soothing call out across the waves. It reverberates around them, and Jinyoung turns to find Wonpil staring up at the stars as if trying to find some meaning in them, just as Jinyoung used to do.

“I’ve spent lifetimes on the back of this whale,” he says softly. “Maybe I’ve just been waiting for someone to find me.”

Wonpil doesn't reply, his eyes still searching the sky. Finally he turns his head towards Jinyoung. “Maybe," he says, "I was looking for you.”

And he smiles, the very same smile he wore when – many lifetimes ago – Jinyoung held his hand at the fork of a river before it swept him away.


End file.
